Former North Carolina State head coach Tom O’Brien says if he could do it all over again he may have started quarterback Russell Wilson as a true freshman. Doing so may have made everyone happy in Raleigh.

“We probably would have played him that first year,” O’Brien said during a conference call this week, according to Joe Giglio of The Charlotte Observer. Not starting Wilson, or at least giving serious playing time, in 2007 would have ended up avoiding what would turn out to be a bit of a complicated divorce between Wilson and NC State.

Wilson graduated from NC State in 2011 and wanted to continue pursuing a potential career in baseball. He had been drafted by the Colorado Rockies but O’Brien wanted him to focus on football. That hard stance from the football coach ended up with Wilson moving on from NC State. Eventually Wilson ended up at Wisconsin, having put the baseball plans behind him after a short stint in the Rockies minor league system. Wilson played his final year of football eligibility at Wisconsin after transferring from North Carolina State in 2011. He led the Badgers to a Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl berth, where Wisconsin lost a back-and-forth offensive battle to Oregon.

“I’m not clairvoyant, I can’t tell the future,” said O’Brien. “You make decisions based on the facts at that time. We had to make a decision that was best for N.C. State.”

NC State moved forward with Mike Glennon taking over as the starting quarterback. Glennon went on to have a 3,000-yard season with 31 touchdowns but the comparisons to Wilson continued. Wilson had comparable passing yardage to Glennon, two more touchdowns but eight fewer interceptions and provided the Badgers with more mobility. It was unfair to Glennon to compare and contrast with Wilson, but it was one O’Brien could not duck from despite going 8-5 with a bowl victory. NC State had gone -4 the year before with Wilson.

Daniel Evans was NC State’s starting quarterback in 2007. The junior passed for 2,030 yards with 12 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Harrison Beck backed Evans up but struggled when on the field as well. Beck ended the season with two touchdowns and nine interceptions. Going back in time and just assuming Wilson would have done better as a true freshman would be unfair, but given Wilson’s track record that would later be established, it may not be an unfair expectation.

A day after it was announced on social media, Cal has officially added a Power Five transfer.

Sunday, Maurice “Moe” Ways revealed on Instagram that he would be transferring from Michigan to Cal. Monday evening, the Golden Bears announced that the wide receiver has signed a financial aid agreement with the university and will play for the football team in 2018.

Ways will be coming to Berkeley from Ann Arbor as a graduate transfer. The upcoming season will be his final year of eligibility.

In addition to the, uh, addition of Ways, Cal also announced that junior college outside linebacker Deon White has also been added to the roster.

“We are excited that Maurice and Deon are joining our program,” head coach Justin Wilcox said in a statement. “Both have tremendous upsides and with their skill sets we feel that they will help us immediately.”

A three-star member of the Wolverines’ 2014 recruiting class, Ways was rated as the No. 8 player at any position in the state of Michigan.

In 25 career games, the former Detroit Country Day high schooler caught eight passes for 71 yards. Ways started two of those contests, with both of those starts coming during his redshirt freshman season in 2015.

A Charlotte native, McClendon appeared in 21 career games as a Wolfpack. He completed 26-of-47 passes (55.3 percent) for 262 yards with one touchdown against four interceptions while rushing 40 times for 156 yards and two touchdowns.

At Baylor, McClendon will step into a depth chart with a hole left by a transfer of its own. The Bears spent 2017 juggling their QB1 spot between Arizona graduate transfer Anu Solomon, sophomore Zach Smith and freshman Charlie Brewer. Solomon graduated and Smith has transferred to Tulsa, meaning McClendon will have to compete with the rising sophomore and brother of former Texas Tech and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Brewer. The younger Brewer was Baylor’s best signal caller in a downtrodden ’17 campaign, hitting 139-of-204 passes (68.1 percent) for 1,562 yards with 11 touchdowns against four interceptions.

The ACC and the American have struck a deal for a football officiating alliance, the American announced Monday. The new program will see the two conferences cooperate on all things officiating, from training to scheduling to evaluation.

With the move, the ACC’s Dennis Hennigan will oversee the alliance, while the American’s Terry McAulay will step down as the league’s coordinator of football officiating and the American will hire a new supervisor of football officials.

“We are excited to partner with the ACC regarding the administration of our football officiating program,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said in a statement. “This alliance will provide both conferences with a deep roster of the best college football officials and will provide for greater efficiency and consistency in the training and evaluation of officials as well as enhanced opportunities for the recruitment of officials. We look forward to working with Dennis Hennigan, who was regarded as one of the top on-field officials in college football and has since become a leader on the administrative side. I also want to thank Commissioner John Swofford for his cooperation in reaching this mutually beneficial arrangement.”

The new alliance means ACC officials could oversee a Tulane-Tulsa game, while AAC officials would work a Clemson-Georgia Tech game. The ACC-AAC Alliance will go into effect for the 2018 season.

The ACC and American Athletic Conference are coming together with the intent on improving officiating oversight between the two conferences. According to an announcement from the AAC, ACC supervisor of officials Dennis Hennigan will serve as the lead administrator and take on the responsibility of hiring and training officials used in both conferences.

“We are excited to partner with the ACC regarding the administration of our football officiating program,” AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco said in a released statement. “This alliance will provide both conferences with a deep roster of the best college football officials and will provide for greater efficiency and consistency in the training and evaluation of officials as well as enhanced opportunities for the recruitment of officials.”

The AAC reportedly removedTerry McAulay from his long-time role as the conference’s coordinator of football officiating, a role he held in the old Big East and carried over to the AAC amid conference realignment changes. The AAC confirmed McAulay will no longer be associated with the conference in that role. The statement from the AAC says the conference will hire a new Supervisor of Football Officials that will help manage the officiating in the AAC and act as a go-to contact for coaches around the league.

There is no word on whether or not this alliance will lead to a combined instant replay process with a central command hub for instant replay reviews. Instead, the alliance seems to focus on working with officials to ensure calls are being called consistently throughout each league. Having officials on the same page with calling penalties and managing a game has been a problem with few answers. This likely won’t guarantee a perfectly called game every week in each conference, but it may prove to be a step in the right direction.